M
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
I counted 32 and its strange that you should post this, because when I checked a cam today I had a doe eat up with them the same way. I never remember seeing that before in my life. Probably some new hybrid from China.....
sandbur
5 year old buck +
Sounds like Mn moose.
Deer Kar
5 year old buck +
Is that how moose get brain worms?
chummer
5 year old buck +
We don't have ticks where I do most of my hunting. I was at a buddy's place and shot one. We hung it for two days until I left. As we were loading it he warned me, "don't hang this one in your garage, take it straight to the processor". It was a three hour drive home, when I opened the tailgate to show the wife and kids the entire head was covered in ticks. They were jumping off like it was the titanic.
kskid
5 year old buck +
Foggy, I made the mistake of bringing a day old deer cape inside to score the rack on my kitchen table. It was crazy cold in my garage. I figured the ticks would have all let go by then. In hindsight, I think they were perfectly happy on that cold dead hide until they got warmed up inside my house. I killed the first few & thought I could keep up until I finished scoring. The next thing I new they were walking off faster than I could kill them. I got it out of the house and spent the next 30 minutes killing ticks. I never would have believed there could be that many ticks on a cape - and there was no sign of the exodus letting up!
SD51555
5 year old buck +
I never saw it myself, but one of my friends shot a deer at Fort Ripley in October that had an exodus take place in his garage. They hung it in there to skin it, and he said he heard what sounded like rain drops on the cardboard below the deer. Looked over and it was a tick exodus.
Mobuck, I'll see your ticks and raise you 10 more:(. I have hundreds of pics of deer's heads filled with ticks. I wonder what it does to fawn survival. It can't be good. Our place seems to have a over abundance of ticks. This year mushroom hunting I picked 60 some tics off of me after 2 hrs of looking for the fungus. On another farm 5 miles away with the same habitat I rarely take more than a couple tics off of me in an afternoon of hunting shrooms and never get trail cam pics that show loads of tics on deer.
The doe looks so short to the buck because it is standing in a mineral lick hole the deer have dug over the years.
I watched a doe out my kitchen window last night that her head was filled with the as well.
A coyote I shot last night and then picked up this morn to move the carcass to more nose friendly environment was experiencing the tick exodus that is mentioned above. I could see a couple dozen crawling on his hide along he legs where the fur was shortest.
The doe looks so short to the buck because it is standing in a mineral lick hole the deer have dug over the years.
I watched a doe out my kitchen window last night that her head was filled with the as well.
A coyote I shot last night and then picked up this morn to move the carcass to more nose friendly environment was experiencing the tick exodus that is mentioned above. I could see a couple dozen crawling on his hide along he legs where the fur was shortest.
kabic
5 year old buck +
I have read in multiple places that placing permethrin soaked cotton balls in cardboard tubes outside for mice to use as nesting material may reduce the tick population. Apparently mice are a major food source for ticks.
You should try that for a couple of years and see if it helps your property.
If you live on your land a more noisy solution would be to get some Guinea fowl. Apparently they love to eat ticks. Personally I think the permethrin idea would be easier.
Foggy,
I had the same ideas and talked to a friend who is a vet and works with wildlife management people who have consulted him about tic problems. I asked him about putting up a back roller/oiler by my mineral licks to help with the tick problem and he said some managers do this but he advises not to as they have a strong odor and allow coyotes to track the does back to fawns easily. He said if I was going to do this I should wait till late summer so that fawns would be much better equipped to evade coyotes.
When they come up with their solution I can't wait to try it.
Smsmith, Thanks for the info on vita rack 26. I will look into this.
I had the same ideas and talked to a friend who is a vet and works with wildlife management people who have consulted him about tic problems. I asked him about putting up a back roller/oiler by my mineral licks to help with the tick problem and he said some managers do this but he advises not to as they have a strong odor and allow coyotes to track the does back to fawns easily. He said if I was going to do this I should wait till late summer so that fawns would be much better equipped to evade coyotes.
When they come up with their solution I can't wait to try it.
Smsmith, Thanks for the info on vita rack 26. I will look into this.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
i read an article in one of the deer publications a while back that said fire can help in the short run, but after you get regrowth and one deer comes across the road with some tics, that you'll be right back where ya started. I know on our property the grassy areas (which we don't have much) are by far ground zero for the ticks. I wonder if a guy shouldn't roll hard through there with a few gallons of permethrin spray in May.
It probably won't win the war, but may provide a morale boost to the guy spraying.
It probably won't win the war, but may provide a morale boost to the guy spraying.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Just read an article that said any kind of poultry will aid in tick reduction but the guinea fowl are best in class. Maybe all the persistent soft mast i planted will boost my grouse population and they can get the job done. I'm ready to believe anything to make me feel better about this.
Native Hunter
5 year old buck +
I got another close up tick on deer pic today and was going to post it - but it was so hideous I couldn't do it.
That one deer appears to be the only one like that.
That one deer appears to be the only one like that.
